Property market buoyant as buyer intentions increase

09 August 2013

New research conducted by ESPC, the property marketing service in East Central Scotland, shows more positive intentions towards the property market. ESPC has been tracking buyer intentions over the last 3-years.

The study, carried out in May 2013 by Why Research Limited, conducted 719 interviews with residents in Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian, West Lothian and West Fife. Of the 719 interviewed, 65% of which were homeowners, 83% intend to buy a home within the next five years. This is a significant increase from the 42% when the research was first carried out in 2011.

Respondents who intend to buy a home to live in within the next 12 months, has also increased by 7.6 per cent over the last three years.

Neil Harrison, Head of Marketing at ESPC said:

“We are now into the third year of the research which helps us greatly to understand the market, purchasing intentions and buyer behaviour in our local area.There are a number of factors impacting on the appeal of homes for sale in Edinburgh and surrounding areas.

“The property market is showing more signs of recovery and this is further evidenced by the buyer intentions in our research. With monthly sales hitting their highest since May 2008, there are positive indicators of greater confidence in the property market,

“We are currently seeing one in four buyers starting their search offline, which shows that the traditional shop windows of members, print adverts and for sale boards still have their place in the marketing plan for selling a home.

“At the same time we are also seeing an increase of 50% year on year in the number of people accessing our website from mobile devices.

“We have invested heavily in meeting the needs of today’s house buyers and sellers. Our showroom, ESPC paper and website have all been redesigned to reflect the different access points when searching to buy or sell residential property.”

“In this buoyant market while some national proeprty portals are reporting 20% uplift in website traffic, we have seen total visits to espc.com increase by 40%. This reflects the research findings that ESPC is where house buyers in Edinburgh, Lothians and Fife look first.”